The fight ended pretty quickly after she'd put Mozenrath down for the count, and after thanking Riku for his help, their group headed back to the palace on a re-summoned Marahute.
The trip there was calm enough, but Sarah found herself reflecting on what'd merely been a passing thought, beforehand: Jafar and Maleficent, for all that they were attempting to use the other for their own gain, were at least nominally allies.
"What's got you so serious?" Riku asked, the grin on his face not having diminished one bit since the pair of them had confronted Mozenrath and beaten back his zombie army.
"Keep your guard up, guys," she said, as Marahute's flightpath carried them over the courtyard they'd all departed from in the first place. "Jafar has an accomplice on the outside; a magic-user. She's also a lot like him, so there's a chance that we might end up having to deal with him again."
"Right," Aladdin said, nodding. "Thanks for letting us know, Sora."
Gently stroking Marahute's back as she swooped in for a landing, Sarah stepped down and paused for a few moments as the rest of her group did the same. Unsummoning Marahute as she fell into step with the rest of them, Sarah braced herself for what could all-too easily be coming.
The sound of running footfalls, many of them and all converging on their location, drew her attention just as she'd been starting to think about unwinding. She didn't have much time to think about just who it was coming out there, before she saw the group of guards spilling out into the courtyard all around them. Razoul was at the head of them; he didn't look happy.
"Take them to the dungeon," the man said, sounding like it was a struggle for him to get the words out.
She sighed. "Jafar, right?"
"The Royal Vizier has retaken his place at the Sultan's right hand," Razoul said bitterly, as he and his moved in to surround their group.
"I swear, when I get my hands on that miserable bastard, I'm going to break his kneecaps," she muttered in German.
"What?" Donald demanded, looking over at her in a mix of confusion tinged with suspicion.
"I think it's time for us to leave, ladies and gentlemen," she said, gathering her personal stores of Mana so that she could resummon Marahute once more. "We'll deal with him when we come back," she said, nodding to Razoul as the others started climbing up onto the eagle's back again.
"Yeah," Aladdin said, clapping "her" right shoulder as he came up behind her. "We'll come back, and we'll defeat Jafar!"
"Marahute, go," she commanded, once she and Aladdin were situated on the eagle's back.
"Now what do we do, Sora?" Jasmine asked.
"Do you know of any places where we'd be able to discuss strategy? Somewhere we'd have at least some warning if Jafar starts sending Heartless after us? Somewhere we can make plans?"
"There's a fortress in the mountains," Jasmine said, sounding thoughtful. "You should be able to make it there, since we have Marahute here with us."
Smiling softly as she directed Marahute, with Jasmine's guidance, to the to the fortress that Jasmine had told her about, Sarah allowed herself to relax a bit. When she started seeing their destination up ahead, she raised an eyebrow; the place looked more like a castle than a fortress.
"So, what's this place called?" Sarah asked, as she directed Marahute to circle over the mountain where the fortress-castle stood.
"This place is called Alamut," Jasmine said, and oh how Sarah wanted to laugh. "Father said that it used to be inhabited by some kind of secret order, but they all disappeared some time ago."
Biting "her" tongue so she wouldn't give into the urge to snicker, Sarah directed Marahute to come in for a landing in the empty, overgrown courtyard. It looked like the place had been some kind of garden, back in Alamut's heyday, but the place was overgrown and had clearly remained disused for some time. She wondered, for a moment, if there had actually been something like the Brotherhood of Assassins that had made their home in this place, or if the name was just some kind of cosmic coincidence.
That wasn't what Sarah needed to focus on at the moment, however, so she set those thoughts aside and climbed down from Marahute's back so that she could un-summon the eagle.
"I'm really starting to like that bird of yours, Sora," Riku said, grinning at her as he made his way over to where she stood.
Sarah clapped his right shoulder in passing, as she made her way into the empty fortress alongside the rest of their group.
"It looks like we're the first ones who've been here in years," Aladdin said, looking around in awe as they passed into the musty corridors of the immense stone fortress.
"Gawrsh, it's kinda spooky in here," Goofy said, arms crossed and shuddering as his gaze darted about the wide, empty corridor.
"Aw, phooey," Donald said disparagingly, as Goofy cringed closer to him. "I'm not afraid of some musty old castle."
Cue jump-scare, Sarah mused, smirking as something shot down from the rafters high above them.
"Lots of birds nesting in the rafters," she commented, then smirked. "You must feel right at home, Donald."
The drake grumbled good-naturedly, as Goofy laughed, and they all continued on their way. When they found themselves in a large room with a fairly large table inside it, their group of six settled themselves around it; the table itself actually seemed almost new, for all that it'd been covered in a thick layer of dust that Donald swiftly cleaned with a wind spell. Aladdin quickly summoned the genie, and Sarah found herself raising an eyebrow, even as she took out a pair of turkey sandwiches and a thermos of milk.
"Talk about your blasts from the past," he said, once he'd fully materialized outside of the lamp and had had a chance to look around.
"What do you mean?" she asked, taking out one ham and one turkey sandwich for Riku at the silver-haired boy's request.
"The sorcerers who… Well, you might say they made me the genie I am today," he said, his habitual joviality sounding more than a bit forced; Sarah wondered for a moment if anyone else would notice that, but quickly returned her attention to the genie when he seemed to be about to say something more. "I haven't seen this place in over ten-thousand years," he said, leaning down to knock on the table they'd all gathered around. "The preservation spells are all still working, though," he smiled wistfully. "They sure made things to last, back then."
She reached out to touch his right hand. "Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah," he said, smiling gently as he took "her" right hand in both of his.
"I'm glad to see that everyone's getting along so well, but I really think we should start discussing how we're going to help my father and defeat Jafar," Jasmine said, worry clear on her face, though it was clear she was trying to keep a lid on it."
"Guys like him are pretty predictable, for the most part: the one thing they always want more of is power. They're never satisfied," she said, after a moment spent marshalling her thoughts. "So, what we need is something with more power than what he's already managed to grab; he'll jump at it before he knows what he's doing."
"Sora, you're not planning to use the lamp are you?" Aladdin asked, once he saw where her gaze had come to rest.
"Of course not, that would be stupid," she reassured the man. "We just need something that looks enough like it that we can put one over on that megalomaniacal moron," she continued, turning her attention back to the genie, who was smiling all the wider. "You know anywhere we might be able to pick up something like that?"
"Do I?" the genie echoed, enthusiastically transforming himself to look like the first thing that most people would think of when they heard the phrase "tour guide"; well, most people back home, anyway.
Sarah wondered for a moment what the others made of how the genie had made himself look, but she quickly put the thought out of her mind; there wasn't much point in thinking up questions she wasn't likely to get the answers to, and besides that there wasn't time to think about things like that, anyway.
The genie led the six of them through the empty, echoing halls of Alamut, stopping occasionally to reminisce about some item or room that reminded him of those sorcerers he'd been speaking so fondly of; whatever their relation to him had ultimately been, it was more than clear that he missed them.
"So, what're you really planning to do when we get back to the palace?" Riku asked, sidling up to her with a rather amused-seeming smirk.
"Have you ever heard of a shell game, Riku?"
"What do- oh," the silver-haired boy chuckled. "I get it. He's going to hate you, you know."
"However shall I cope," she deadpanned in return, smirking at the grin on Riku's face.
Directing Kuromaru to fetch her a sturdy stick when they came to what seemed to be the final stop on their impromptu tour of Alamut, Sarah smiled amusedly as the genie opened the doors before them to reveal a whole room filled with all kinds of different lamps.
"These would have been where the sorcerers put any genies they… that they had," the genie said, an indefinable expression passing over his face.
"All right," she said, turning her attention back to the genie. "Thanks for all you've done to help us. I don't imagine it was easy, coming back here and all."
"Hey, it's not that bad," the genie said, grinning a bit more openly. "Thanks for understanding, though. You're a good kid, Sora."
"Thanks," she said, turning to make her way into the circular room with the varied, exotic-looking lamps of assorted shapes and colors.
Aladdin was the one who ended up finding what they'd come to this place for, not long after they'd made their way into the room. Sarah thought it was perfectly fitting, since he was the one who'd found the genie's lamp in the first place.
"So, what are we going to do now, Sora?"
"We're going to play a shell game," Riku said, smirking amusedly.
"What Riku means is that we're going to bait Jafar with something that looks like what he wants, then we're going to jump him while he's distracted, possibly help the guards beat the crap out of him, and then see how we can help your father," she clarified, to the accompaniment of Riku's snickering. "I think we might be best served splitting up when we first get there, just so Jafar doesn't know how many people he's actually facing," she mused aloud, then reconsidered. "On the other hand… Genie, if you're outside your lamp, would you be all right if the lamp itself was somewhere else?"
"Well, I wouldn't be able to go back inside until I had it with me again, but I'd be all right, just as long as you didn't keep it away for too long."
"All right," she said, nodding as she turned her attention back to the little Shadow that had just returned to her side, a long, sturdy stick clutched tightly in its taloned hands. "Good boy, Kuromaru," she added, taking the stick and inspecting it; it was sturdy enough for her purposes, but also a bit longer than she presently needed. "Cut this for me, will you?" she asked, passing the stick back to the little Shadow that had fetched it for her. "Would you mind sending your lamp away for a bit?" this she directed at the genie and Aladdin both, though admittedly she was a bit more interested in the genie's take on things.
"Well, if it's to fool that two-faced son of a jackal, I'm all for it," Aladdin said, passing her the lamp.
"What about you?" she asked, turning her attention to the genie, as he continued to bob just off the ground near where the rest of them were standing.
"What do you mean?" the genie asked, looking over at her in clear surprise after she'd finished speaking.
"Well, you live there, don't you?" she asked in return, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah," the large, blue genie said, looking more than a little taken-aback. "I just didn't expect you to actually ask me about it."
"It's only polite; you do live there, after all."
She didn't quite expect the hug, or the way the genie firmly ruffled "her" hair. "Thanks for thinking of me, kid," he said, smiling in a kindly sort of way. "You're welcome to take my lamp anywhere you want."
"Thank you for trusting me," she said, taking both the lamp as well as the stick that Kuromaru had just finished trimming for her.
Giving the little Shadow instructions to take the real lamp and hide it in the dresser by the side of her bed, Sarah turned her attention as he came over to stand beside her.
"What was that about, Sora?"
"That's the thing you have to remember about shell games, Riku," she said, smirking. "They're always rigged."
Tying a pair of socks around the stick that Kuromaru had brought for her, she compared the size next to the lamp that Aladdin and Jasmine had brought out from the storage room. It was about the same size, so that was rather pleasant. Wrapping a spare t-shirt around the mock-up to help conceal it, Sarah tied the shirt off and tucked the whole thing into her supply-pack, making certain that the point of the stick was still visible enough so that anyone looking for something would be able to see it. Aladdin was the first to call attention to the fact that Jafar would be handling both the fake lamp as well as the mock-up, and he was also the one who suggested that the genie could help with that.
She'd agreed, and after she'd passed it over to the genie in question, she smiled when she got it back; it now had the same texture, heft, and feel as the lamp itself.
They all swiftly departed from Alamut on Marahute's back, once everything had been settled to their own satisfaction, and Sarah allowed herself to relax slightly for the duration of their flight. Narrowing "her" eyes as Marahute circled over the palace, before tucking her wings to dive into the courtyard, she turned as Riku whooped gleefully, sharing a smirk with the silver-haired boy. The six of them climbed down off of the giant eagle's back, making their way down to the ground once more.
"All right," Aladdin said, clenching his fists and glaring up at the imposing form of the palace they were all now standing in the shadow of. "Let's go and defeat Jafar."
"No arguments here," she commented idly.
Riku, for his part, seemed to have a permanent smirk plastered on his face as the six of them made their way into the palace through a series of hidden passages that Jasmine herself was conducting them through, so Sarah sidled up to the silver-haired boy and the pair of them had a short discussion about what was going to be coming soon.
Really, if he was going to make it so obvious that something was up, she could at least get some use out of that.
When the six of them finally arrived in the throne room, Sarah rolled "her" eyes as she saw Jafar lounging in the heavily-cushioned throne, with the sultan himself slumped on the floor by his feet.
"Jafar!" Aladdin all but snarled, instantly drawing the sorcerer's attention to the six of them.
She and Riku shared a smirk, before the pair of them closed ranks with the other four members of their group, gathering to present a united front.
Sarah, for her part, didn't even bother to try holding back her laughter. "You see, this is why, even if you do manage to become sultan, I'd give it two, maybe three months before enough people get fed up with you that they have you either poisoned, or someone sneaks in to smother you in your sleep. Also, you'll want to stay away from windows, in either case; crossbow-bolts are terrible for your health."
"Silence, boy!" Jafar snapped, practically throwing himself to his feet, grabbing his cobra-headed staff in the same, smooth motion.
She'd almost expected him to fire off some kind of a staff-blast, Goa'uld style, but the sound of fluttering wings drew her attention before she could contemplate anything more on the subject. The red parrot that she'd briefly seen perched on Jafar's shoulder, back in the city, before she'd jumped the man – and quite a bit before she and hers had ended up in that scrap with Mozenrath and his zombie army – flew over to Jafar with the empty lamp that they'd taken from Alamut. Biting back a smirk as Jafar retrieved the thing, Sarah recalled the Keyblade to "her" hand.
Jafar, naturally, was pissed when he found out that the lamp he'd had his parrot fetch didn't work as anything but a decoration. When she and Riku played out a little pantomime of the latter's alleged betrayal, the pair of them had a good laugh at the look on his face once they were finished. Ducking out of the way of a flash of the man's own magic, she lashed out and slapped him between the eyes with a Thunder Whip.
The five of them who were actually capable of combat all ganged up on Jafar after that, wearing him down until Razoul and his fellow guards could fully subdue him.
Breathing slowly and deeply once Sarah knew that she and the others would have at least some reprieve, Sarah looked over "her" left shoulder as the short, rotund form of the sultan came hurrying over to look down on Jafar as he lay there like a trussed-up turkey. As the sultan began lecturing the other man about matters that Sarah could hazard a guess about while not being particularly interested in, she turned her attention to what she and hers were going to do next.
Return to Traverse Town for some food and rest, of course, but there was also the matter of what was going to be happening after that. Wracking her brain for anything of import that she could recall, from either her own playthrough or Hellfire Commentaries', Sarah sighed. There was something to do with a water world, or an underwater world, but all she could really remember about it was that it wasn't Rapture.
Of course, that's another place that this is better than, she mused, turning her attention back to Jafar, laid out on the floor as the guards shackled him tightly.
It seemed like the Sultan's lecture was starting to wind down, and she turned slightly to see Riku making his way over to where she was standing.
"You didn't listen to a word he was saying, did you?" Riku asked, smirking as he leaned over to stage whisper in "her" left ear as the sultan walked away slowly, sadly shaking his head.
"You're telling me you were?" she retorted, smirking lightly back.
Riku punched "her" right shoulder for that, but he was practically grinning all the while. The pair of them quickly fell in with their compatriots once more, and Jasmine led them all over to the well-appointed throne where her father had seated himself once more.
"I just don't know what went wrong," the man said, morosely stroking his long, voluminous beard. "Jafar seemed like such a good person when we were first introduced. His father was even appointed Vizier under my own father."
Since Sarah didn't really have much of a stake in anything that was presently being discussed, she instead reflected back on what had happened on almost all of the other planets that she and hers had stopped off on. If it'd been just once or twice, maybe she could have just written it off as some kind of fluke. However, the fact that the only place she hadn't ended up having to seal up with the Keyblade was the Coliseum, that made it the exception rather than the rule.
It also meant that she was more than likely to end up having to do that same kind of thing on this little planet, too; and that meant that she was going to have to find someone to lead her to wherever it was.
After all, she'd needed the same kind of guide last time. Still, the last two she'd encountered before had at least been semi-obvious, in hindsight if nowhere else, so there was at least a good chance that this place would be the same. Better than average, at least.
"Sora, have you been paying attention?" Donald asked, looking concerned but also faintly disapproving.
"Sorry, there's been a lot on my mind since that last fight," she said, lowly enough that she wouldn't interrupt any of the conversations going on around them. "I miss anything important?"
"The Sultan invited us to dinner, to thank us for the way we helped stop Jafar, Mozenrath, and all of those," the drake paused for a moment, eyes darting to and fro in a way that only served to make him look more suspicious. "All of those things we had to fight when we went out there."
"That's nice of him," she said, wondering for a moment if it would be anything like the tea party that she and hers – plus Riku – had been called to attend when they'd finished their business in Wonderland. "What'd you tell him?"
"I told him that we could at least stay long enough to eat," the drake said. "But then we needed to leave."
She nodded. "There's one last thing here that we should probably look into before we head out, but you're right about the rest: this is probably the last we'll be seeing of this place."
The pair of them nodded sharply at each other, before Goofy and Riku met up with them again. Riku was quick to fall into step beside her, almost cutting Goofy off in his hurry. The anthropomorphic dog was a bit more easygoing about it than she herself would have been – nary a sarcastic comment to be heard; she sometimes wondered if Goofy was even capable of such – and the four of them made their way over to the nicely-laden pair of tables that had been set out for them.
Aladdin and Jasmine both joined them on their way there, though those two naturally chose to sit closer to Jasmine's father, probably so the pair of them would more easily be able to catch his ear when the time came.
The meal itself was large enough to be called a small feast by most peoples' standards, though privately Sarah thought that it contained more cheese than those same people would have ever thought to include. Once they'd all finished eating, with her trying a little bit of everything and most of the others just sticking with one or two favored or familiar dishes, she and the rest of her group rose and thanked the sultan for his generous hospitality.
When they were finally able to excuse themselves from his presence without offending the man – something that at first glance wouldn't have seemed possible, but he was just as much a person as any of them, and people could be pushed too far – she made her way over to where Aladdin and Jasmine were standing. The pair of them had their heads leaned together and seemed very happy, so she figured that their conversation with said sultan had gone pretty much the way the pair of them had wanted.
"You two look happy," Sarah commented as she came within earshot; wasn't exactly a profound statement, but as far as conversation starters went she figured it wasn't bad.
"Jasmine's father gave us permission to marry!" Aladdin exclaimed, grinning widely as he pulled his intended close.
"Congratulations," she said, smiling softly.
She might not have known them for more than a day, but they seemed like good people.
"All we have to do now is court for the traditional year and a day, and then Father says that he'll be perfectly happy to support us getting married," Jasmine said, happiness seeming to radiate out of her as she smiled.
"Well, I certainly hope things work out for you two," she said. "Now, I'll just get you your lamp back and the four of us can be on our way."
"Right, the lamp," Aladdin said, looking a bit sheepish. "I still owe the genie his freedom."
Calling Kuromaru back didn't take all that long, even though the little Shadow had had the foresight to make itself scarce during the course of their fights with Jafar and Mozenrath. Out it came from a nearby shadow-portal, holding the lamp in its talons. Waving Kuromaru over to Aladdin as it tried to present the lamp to her, Sarah stood back and watched, curious about what would happen next.
When Aladdin rubbed the lamp, without the genie inside, she wondered if what was how genies and their lamps worked or if he was doing that just out of habit; honestly, it could have been either of those. I wonder how it is for djinn, she mused, watching as Aladdin made his last wish.
Smiling as the genie positively reveled in his newfound freedom, admittedly by laughing his blue head off and severely mussing Aladdin's hair, Sarah found herself chuckling, too.
"Well, now that you're free, what do you plan to do?" Aladdin asked, before Sarah herself could have done the same.
"I never really thought about it. I mean," he said, reaching down to pick up the lamp – now as empty as the one they'd taken from Alamut – staring thoughtfully at the unpolished bronze for a long, silent moment.
"You never thought you'd have the chance," she said, voicing the thoughts she could read so plainly on his face.
"Yeah, that's it," the genie said, his smile sadder and more wistful than any she'd ever seen on his face before.
"Well, if I'd been stuck in one place for so long, I'd want to go out and see the world," Riku said, making his way over to where the genie stood, more toward the center of their group.
The genie laughed softly in response, but it sounded more like an agreement than anything else.
"You guys have room for one more in your little caravan?" the genie asked, after another moment's contemplation.
"I think we could find a place for you," she said easily, offering "her" right hand so that the pair of them could shake.
"Since you're goin' to be comin' with us anyway, would you mind showin' us the Keyhole before we go?" Goofy asked, proving that they were on the same page, for the most part.
"Goofy!" Donald hissed, as Aladdin seemed about ready to start asking questions.
Goofy slapping a hand over his mouth, combined with Donald's glare at his fellow anthro for speaking out of turn, seemed almost calculated to dissuade him from doing anything more than looking curious, however.
"You know about that?" the genie asked, leaning over to whisper almost conspiratorially to them.
It seemed like no one aside from her knew how to operate clandestinely.
"Everyone here knows about that," Riku said, coming over to them with a wide, cocky grin on his face. "We've all been traveling to other Worlds."
"Riku!"
"I thought your issue was with people finding out who didn't actually know before," she said, drawing Donald's attention as Riku started glaring at him. "He already does, so what's your problem?"
Donald scoffed, but didn't seem to have anything to say.
Riku chuckled. "He sure told you."
"Easy there, Riku," she said, clapping his right shoulder in passing as she made her way over to stand closer to the genie. "So, would you mind helping us out?"
"Well, I don't know," the genie said, tilting his head and grinning amusedly. "After all this time I spent granting wishes for people, I don't think I want to, anymore."
"Would it help if I asked you nicely?" she returned, smirking slightly.
"Well," the genie said, stroking his large chin. "If you asked me nicely, I might agree."
"Will you please show us the Keyhole, genie?" she asked, fluttering "her" eyelashes dramatically.
Riku snickered, but he was nearly drowned out by the genie's own laughter.
"All right, all right," the genie said, grinning widely and mussing up "her" hair. "You convinced me; I'll take you and your friends to the Keyhole."
She had only a moment to wonder how he was going to transport them, before translucent-looking blue smoke billowed up all around their entire group. When the smoke cleared, Sarah found that they were all standing together in an ornate room. She might have been tempted to call it a cavern, since even she could smell the stagnant air inside the stone walls and under the ceiling. Still, the place was just too ornate to be encapsulated by such a comparatively simple word.
Recalling the Keyblade as she moved towards the back of the chamber, Sarah paused for a moment as the scent of fresh rain on warm concrete hit "her" nose. She saw Riku coming up beside her out of the corner of "her" left eye, but most of her attention was admittedly focused on the pillar of green-black flame forming just in front of their small group.
She caught a brief glimpse of black feathers, fluttering as though blown by the wind, before everyone aside from her and Riku collapsed to the ground. She'd enough time to determine that all of them were still breathing, and that even the genie had fallen to the ground at their feet, before the tall, slender form of Maleficent appeared before her and Riku.
"I witnessed your battles with the sorcerer and the necromancer," the fairy said, making her way over to where Sarah and Riku were standing.
Sarah forced herself not to narrow "her" eyes at the calculating expression spreading over the fairy woman's face; no point in antagonizing anyone she didn't need to.
"You came all the way to tell us that? Isn't this place a bit out of your way?" she asked, tilting "her" head and smiling softly.
"My child, you have such a talent for banter," Maleficent strode closer, grasping her long staff and looking down with amused contempt at the forms of Sarah's traveling companions. "I find myself rather curious, however: would you be willing to do a favor for me?"
"Depends on what that favor of your is," she said, tucking "her" hands into Sora's pockets; she suspected she already knew what the fairy was after.
"Canny little thing," Maleficent said, reaching out to ruffle "her" hair. "I simply wish for you to provide me with aid for a little project of mine."
"You're not gonna ask me to kill anyone, are you?" she asked, cocking "her" head as she faced off with the fairy woman; the fact that she'd gone this far out of her way to meet up with them, even in spite of her clear interest in Riku, wasn't an entirely hopeful development.
Maleficent laughed, the expression on her face one of clear though amused dismissal; the look in her eyes, however… Yeah, this was probably the last time the pair of them were going to be parting on good terms. "Of course not, young man," she laughed again, this time in a clear attempt to put Sarah at ease; wasn't happening. "Nothing so crude."
Here it comes, she mused, firmly resisting the urge to sigh. "Could you be more specific, then? I can't really give you an answer if I don't know what you're asking."
"Very shrewd; and very wise, young man," Maleficent said, with a pleased sort of hum. "I would like you to aid me in acquiring the remaining Princesses of Heart."
"You're talking about kidnapping," she said, when Maleficent paused for a moment, looking at the boy everyone still thought she was, as though to gage her reaction.
"A rather crude description," Maleficent said.
"But no less true," she returned, meeting the gaze of the fairly woman as squarely as she could while standing at Sora's height.
"I suppose you would be correct," Maleficent allowed.
"I suppose, in that case, I have to respectfully decline," she said, wondering even as she did so how this latest conversation of theirs would ultimately turn out; how Maleficent would react to being refused, even so politely as she was doing such. "I'm not going to kidnap anyone; it's one of my policies."
"Your policy?" Maleficent echoed, her smile becoming rather more amused than it had previously been. "Riku proved himself more than willing to take part."
She scoffed. "All due respect, milady, but Riku could be talked into eating live spiders."
"Hey!" the boy in question exclaimed, stomping over to the pair of them with an annoyed expression on his face; though it almost looked like he was trying not to smirk, even as he did so. "I could not be talked into that."
Maleficent laughed again, either truly amused by what she was hearing, or else pretending to be for the sake of appearances. "You are a rather interesting young man, Sora."
"That's very kind of you to say, milady," she said, lacing "her" fingers together across "her" stomach. "Still, if this conversation keeps going down the path it seems to be heading down, I'm afraid the two of us won't be parting as friends."
It was really only fair that she gave such a warning; Maleficent could reconsider the path she was on, unlikely as such an outcome ultimately was. Still, everyone deserved at least the chance to reconsider the path they were on; whether or not they took it was up to them.
"Truly, I think I would miss these amusing little discussions of ours," the fairy woman said, a small, enigmatic smile on her face. "Tell me, young man, what would it take for you to discard this policy of yours?"
"Nothing you'd be willing to give," she said, shifting slightly so that she could keep the slumbering forms of her traveling companions; there had to be a way to wake them up, though she didn't yet know if such a thing would be better accomplished through mundane or magical means.
"Come now, my boy," Maleficent said, reaching out to clasp "her" left shoulder. "There must be something you desire."
"I know how seriously your people take oaths," she said. "Don't get me wrong, more people should, but I wouldn't ask for anything like that from one of you in particular."
"Truly, you are the most interesting person I've come across in my time, my boy," Maleficent said amusedly; whether she was taking cues from Riku or she was actually genuinely amused, Sarah smiled back at her.
"Would you mind waking my people up?" she asked, tilting "her" head slightly as she looked up at the fairly woman. "I should really start getting back to my home base."
"I suppose we can always speak later, young man," Maleficent said, tapping her staff sharply against the sandstone floor.
She vanished a second later, and everyone who had previously been sleeping began to wake up. After a few, long moments of confusion, the rest of her traveling companions had recovered and began to gather behind her. Summoning the Keyblade, she concentrated for a moment, managing at last to lock Agrabah's Keyhole just as she'd done with the others before it.
"Well, it looks like we can all head home now, Sora," Donald said, folding his wing-arms across his narrow chest.
"Glad to hear it," she said, smiling slightly. "Riku, you need a ride?"
Riku laughed, grinning as he made his own way over to their group. "Nah, I can find my own way back."
"Well, if you're sure," she said, bumping fists with the silver-haired boy before she turned back to her traveling companions. "All right, let's head home, people," she called over "her" right shoulder, turning around after recalling a last thing she hadn't done. "And, genie?"
"Yes, Sora?" he asked, an expression of mild apprehension on his face; Sarah wondered about that, for a moment.
"Thanks," she said, offering "her" right hand for the genie to shake.
"Oh," he said, then grinned widely. "You're welcome!"
The pair of them shook hands, and then she and hers gathered more closely together so that he could teleport them all back to the palace. After saying their farewells to the people they'd met, she and hers made their way back to the dark, secluded storeroom where they'd first arrived.